Potted plants add extra colour

CONTAINER plants can create a stunning display, full of colour, for brightening the most uninteresting corners or sun-drenched spot in your garden.They can brighten up your patio, decking, courtyard or balcony, making it an attractive and interesting place to while away your time.

The hard surfaces of these mostly secluded gardens are a good choice of gardening in the centre of Manama and built up urban areas, where space is limited and lawns are too demanding to establish and maintain satisfactorily.

A patio that links the house and garden is an extremely pleasurable way to enjoy open-air living.

It provides an area for sitting out and informal dining when weather permits.

You can achieve a most delightful garden even if your arena is a postage stamp size.

To compose an aesthetic display using container grown plants, keep it uncomplicated rather than trying to amass every type of plant on your extensive list of wants.

Containers take the form of all shapes and sizes. There is nothing more picturesque than an old wooden wheelbarrow, or an old wooden barrel, overflowing with colour from spring bulbs and annuals.

Picture an old leather boot brimming over with brilliance.

The choice of containers is phenomenal.

Most plants are suitable to grow in containers and for the gardener with limited space, this is an ideal way to enjoy a variety of species of trees, shrubs and climbers.

It is, in general, a perfect way to raise them, as you can move them around to an ideal site and take indoors when it is not a suitable season and for species that need a different soil type from that in your garden.

Select pots that have large drainage holes. Good drainage is vital. Plastic or glazed ceramic pots retain water, therefore water and feeding will be less than for terracotta pots, which are porous and quickly dry out.

Therefore, plants grown in terracotta pots require extra vigilance during the summer months.

If you plant in terracotta pots, which are preferable as they allow the plants to breathe, you will have to increase both water and food, as frequent watering washes away the nutrients.

Place at the bottom of terracotta pots, over the drainage holes, a few pieces of broken tiles and add a layer at least one inch (2.5cm) of broken crocks.

Also, cover the drainage holes of all pots with a piece of perforated zinc to ward off insects from entering.

Containers are outstanding for displaying trees on a patio.

A useful guide as to the size of the container for your patio tree is to select one that is one sixth and one quarter of the tree’s height and a depth of at least one-and-a-half times the tree’s root-ball.

The best time to plant a tree, a shrub or a climber in a container, is from late summer to autumn. When it is time to pot on a shrub or climber, select a container around two inches (5cm) larger in depth and diameter than the plant’s previous one.

Feed potted plants regularly throughout the growing season with a high-potash, low nitrogen fertiliser.

Shop around for your container.

Bahrain’s nurseries have a good selection, but you may well find in one a container that meets your needs but an almost identical, if not identical, one is available for a considerably lower price in another!
Elizabeth Shaheen - GDN - 12 Feb, 2006